Marisa flies on a bamboo brom as part of her magician appearance. It's an ordinary broom, but constant exposure to magic has caused a curious growth to begin. Although the bamboo is dead, leaves appear to be sprouting from the handle, independently from Marisa's magic.<ref name="gumon_117-120" /> In the fighting games, it serves additional purposes - she uses it as a weapon for striking and shooting [[danmaku]].

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Marisa flies on a bamboo broom as part of her magician appearance. It's an ordinary broom, but constant exposure to magic has caused a curious growth to begin. Although the bamboo is dead, leaves appear to be sprouting from the handle, independently from Marisa's magic.<ref name="gumon_117-120" /> In the fighting games, it serves additional purposes - she uses it as a weapon for striking and shooting [[danmaku]].

Marisa Kirisame (霧雨 魔理沙,Kirisame Marisa) is an ordinary humanmagician who specializes in light and heat magic and currently resides in the Forest of Magic. Her motto is: "It ain't magic if it ain't flashy. Danmaku's all about firepower,"[2] and she has a compulsive mania for collecting things. She's considered to be the deuteragonist of the Touhou Project series along with the main protagonist, Reimu Hakurei.

Marisa serves as an audience surrogate of sorts - she is straight-forward and much easier to understand than other characters, typically filling the support role. She also serves as contrast to Reimu, who's blessed with innate abilities, by being the hard-working type of character without any special powers. ZUN has said that this makes her a rather "un-Touhou-like" character, but also gives him much more leeway in creating a story.[3][4]

Marisa's height is that of a girl in her early teens and is in the "fairly short" group.[5]. Unlike Patchouli Knowledge and Alice Margatroid, who are magicians by species, she's merely an ordinary human who uses magic. In the games themselves, she's a character who consistently stresses high power and quick speed. She exceeds in attack and penetration power, but her attack range is generally narrow. Her signature move is the tremendous laser spell card, Love Sign "Master Spark". She has good speed and power, but poor melee technique.[6]

Marisa is very straightforward and informal with everyone. She can be condescending, as if trying to make fool of others, and often has difficulty expressing sympathy.[2] She's often unyielding and uncooperative. She has a mania for collecting things and may have a hoarding disorder. She's quick to act if she hears anything interesting. Marisa is also a habitual liar, but she makes no effort to actually deceive anyone as her lies are extremely obvious. In later appearances, Marisa has revealed that she does care about the wellbeing of Gensokyo, but she conceals it underneath her usual rowdy self.

Marisa is very hard-working, but she goes to great lengths to not show that side of hers to others.[2] She claims to be "the number two in Gensokyo"[7] and takes great pride in her magical prowess, believing that she will be known as a great witch, sparing no effort to achieve that goal.[8]

Unlike most characters, Marisa is known to use a distinct speech tone. The most typical and known example of this is the use of the sentence ending particle ze (ぜ). "Ze" used at the end of verb stems delivers a "boyish" and "impolite" sound to the listener/reader. Ze is mostly used in a context to express one's will to act (similar to "let's" in English), and using it in other cases sound somewhat unnatural, perhaps "phony" or "showy". In the PC-98 games, she is initially more feminine (in Story of Eastern Wonderland, she uses the effeminate atai (あたい) to refer to herself, and her laughs are represented as a girlish "kyahaha!"), but her tone became more similar to her current manner of speech by the time of Mystic Square. One source of influence could've been Chiyuri Kitashirakawa, whose speaking style is quite similar to Marisa's.

Marisa runs a shop for anything as an attachment to her own house. Although it's her primary occupation, she's usually absent. Inside the shop, it's so unimaginably disordered that it becomes like a mini-Forest of Magic.[2]

Perfect Memento in Strict Sense provides some information on the magic shop.[2] Though Marisa is surprisingly honest with her services, refusing to take payment for a failed job, the shop sees little use due to its difficult-to-find location in the Forest of Magic and the ambiguity of what her services actually are. (In Touhou Sangetsusei, on the Kirisame Magic Shop's signboard, other than the shop name, nothing is written but "what will you do" (なんかします).) The Three Fairies of Light were her first customers to her shop, but Perfect Memento in Strict Sense implies she's had other customers since then, albeit not many.

Burglary

Marisa caught committing burglary.

According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Marisa boldly breaks in from the front and openly says her motto "I'll be borrowing these!" while carrying things off. She mostly steals books, so she might not be the kind who steals money. Her ability to "learn other people's moves" might originate from her nature as a thief.

As opposed to how she was commented to be a "prowler" in Bohemian Archive in Japanese Red, Marisa said: "My life is way shorter than yours anyway, so can't you just take back everythin' after I kick the bucket? I'm just borrowin' until then. It should be good for the stuff I'm taking that way, too." Aya Shameimaru's response was "The contents of the excerpt are very human-like and childish".

Marisa flies on a bamboo broom as part of her magician appearance. It's an ordinary broom, but constant exposure to magic has caused a curious growth to begin. Although the bamboo is dead, leaves appear to be sprouting from the handle, independently from Marisa's magic.[2] In the fighting games, it serves additional purposes - she uses it as a weapon for striking and shooting danmaku.

The mini-Hakkero, Marisa's treasured item, is a furnace that she uses to power her signature Master Spark. From the flame of a table-top stove, to that of a flamethrower, to a powerful and unmatched wide magicannon, the mini-Hakkero has a convenient range of uses.[2][11] Marisa herself said, "I can't even think of makin' a livin' without it."[12] It was given to Marisa by Rinnosuke Morichika as a farewell gift when Marisa left her family to live in the Forest of Magic, even though it'd be risky for a girl of her age to handle.

Marisa carries, concealed in her skirt, a dangerous finished product of mushrooms made from mushroom magic. After throwing the item, it explodes. The fact that she conceals them in her skirt seemed dangerous even to Hieda no Akyuu as noted in Perfect Memento in Strict Sense.

Marisa is a normal human with no innate abilities, but her true strength lies in her ability to use one of the highest classes of magic power that humans can use – an unusual feat perhaps only possible because of the effects of the Forest of Magic.[2] She's also faced very powerful humans and youkai and was able to solve a number of incidents in various scenarios, all being high achievements. However, her existence is closest to an ordinary person; she was born without any innate abilities (unlike Reimu Hakurei) and has been compared to "humans of a level close to us" by ZUN. As a result, the interpretations of Marisa's power can go to extremes. She has an attachment to power and has self-belief in ostentatious display of power. She always finds opponents to fight and plays by finding faults. However, she's actually a hard worker, and her power is the result of her secret training.[13] For example, Marisa appears to have developed an innate resistance against poisonous substances, due to her gathering of mushrooms and living in the Forest of Magic.

Concerning her resolution of incidents, ZUN has said that "Even when Reimu and the gang are defeated, they challenge again however many times they want, but on the youkai side they don't challenge again after being defeated, and are not attached to the results of winning or losing... to say it clearly, it is assuredly an inconsequential thing^^;" Whether they win or lose isn't important, and it's unclear how many tries she needed to defeat the last bosses.[14]

Marisa has trained herself in magic that specialises in light and heat. She's an Eastern magician who takes a Western approach to magic, the opposite of Patchouli Knowledge. Her magic has tremendous power and few weaknesses, but it has few non-destructive uses, so she uses it for flashy youkai extermination more than anything. Her magic makes for a good danmaku show, but this is made possible only through her strenuous honest effort in creating layered effects. The majority of her spells rely on power over finesse and are themed after stars and other astronomical phenomena. According to Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, it's strange for a human to have mastery of magic of this level.

Marisa picks and collects various exotic mushrooms that live in the Forest of Magic. She boils them, crushes them, dries them, and furthermore mixes them, making strange chemicals or medicine. By heating them, submerging them into water, or by throwing things in directly, through trial and error, she finds a pattern from which magic-like materials come forth. Success or failure, she records the details of each experiment.[2] In her house, there are a ton of various handmade grimoires.

Prior to starting her research in The Grimoire of Marisa, Marisa did not use complex slave-type attacks, as she was only capable of using slaves that circle around her (her guest appearance in Shuusou Gyoku notwithstanding).[15][16]

Marisa is almost always depicted as riding on her broom when she flies in the sky. In the fighting spinoffs prior to Hopeless Masquerade she rides a broom only during some of her assault skills, like Witch Leyline and Stardust Reverie. However, the more recent aerial fighters show Marisa making an extensive and continuous use of her broom, to the point that there isn't a single moment in which she isn't riding or holding it. Perfect Memento in Strict Sense states she uses the magic broom to ride around on because she believes it's an essential tool for a magician. It was originally a normal broom but sprouted leaves as a side effect of Marisa using it in magic rituals. Whether she actually needs her broom to fly or if it's just for show is unconfirmed. In Great Fairy Wars, her broom is nowhere in sight; it's possible that Makoto Hirasaka might've simply chosen not to draw it. She was, however, seen with one in her article with Cirno in Symposium of Post-mysticism about this fight.

In the PC-98 games, she's typically shown to use a vine in place of her broom in her boss appearances (with the notable exception of Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream where she has illusionary wings instead), but her Lotus Land Story and Mystic Square endings show her using a broom. In Shuusou Gyoku, she's depicted with angel wings.

Marisa seems to take pride in her own speed,[17] which is potentially among the fastest for a human. When she used Double Spark againt Watatsuki no Yorihime in Silent Sinner in Blue, she moved some meters away from the first laser fast enough that she was able to shot a second one before the first reached the Moon princess.[18] However, ZUN has mentioned that Aya Shameimaru is the fastest in Gensokyo, and Marisa appears to consider Aya extremely fast,[19] and a worthy challanger in terms of speed,[17] so while there is the idea that Marisa is really fast, there might be other characters that are faster than her.

Marisa's high speed is echoed in the games, usually by giving her the fastest or one of the fastest movement speed.

It's unknown if Marisa is inherently talented at imitating others' moves, or if she simply manages to do so due to sheer effort. She uses her mini-Hakkero to use the Master Spark, while Yuuka uses her version of the laser through other means.[21] Thus, her copying of the Master Spark seems more analogous to a person copying a fire-breathing dragon by using a flamethrower rather than a person copying a fire-breathing dragon by breathing flames merely through observation. Marisa also states that she can't imitate Kaguya Houraisan's spell cards as they use special items that she doesn't possess.[22] In that case, it's analogous to a person being unable to copy a fire-breathing dragon since there are no devices on hand.

It's unlikely her implied tendency to copy other's moves is abnormal, as magicians such as Marisa build upon the work of others. Marisa claims in The Grimoire of Marisa that it's "magicians who build on observation", while Patchouli Knowledge uses the pride of magicians to add their own original touch to another's work while preserving and respecting the original.[23] Magicians seek the truth according to Patchouli.[24] They act like researchers in this sense, building upon the work of others. However, other magicians such as Patchouli and Alice Margatroid haven't been depicted using imitations as blatant as Marisa's for spell cards.

Her full name is Marisa Kirisame (霧雨 魔理沙). Her surname Kirisame (霧雨, lit. "mist rain") means "drizzle" in Japanese. The kanji used in her given name ma (魔) is highly likely to come from the "ma" in mahou (魔法, "magic") and with ri (理) able to be interpreted as "logic/law/theory" (理,kotowari), it can be said that they deliver the idea of her being a magician/witch. In addition, the kanji sa (沙, lit. "small sand") doesn't have an actual meaning, but it's often used in Japanese given names to get the sound/look of "girlishness" (different kanji, but the same idea is used in Minamitsu Murasa's name too).

Marisa is also a female given name with origins in the Romance languages, which is a variant of Latin "maris", meaning "of the sea", but may also mean "manly". If her name was based on this, then it's very likely to indicate Marisa's character being a mix of both Eastern and Western cultures.

Story of Eastern Wonderland had her name written as 魔梨沙 in-game, with the kanji meaning "pear". In that game's attached text files and bad endings it was written as 魔理沙. Since then, her name is still written as 魔理沙, so 魔梨沙 was likely a typo.

In PC-98canon, Marisa is depicted as having red eyes and red hair in Story of Eastern Wonderland, wearing a purple witch's outfit with a white bow on her hat. In the bad endings, she's shown with a yellow bow and large white earrings. However, her appearance quickly changes with Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream, where she has yellow eyes and blonde hair similar to the Windows canon. This appearance stays with her for the rest of the series. In Mystic Square, her hat gained faint pink frills.

In the transition from PC-98 to Windows, her color scheme was changed from primarily using purple to a black-and-white one. This is first shown in her appearance in Shuusou Gyoku. From Embodiment of Scarlet Devil onwards, she wears a faint pink apron on top of her clothes. In Perfect Cherry Blossom, she gains a faint pink shirt under her black clothing. Marisa's appearance changes slightly with each release, such as a change in her hat bow's colour, a change in her ribbon's colour tied to her braid or a change in hair style - for example, in Ten Desires, her hat's bow is purple, she has a purple ribbon tied to the braid on the left side of her hair, her shoes are maroon coloured with small purple ribbons on them, and she has a red ribbon tied to her neck.

In Hopeless Masquerade and later fighting game spin-offs, she wears dark blue clothes instead of her normal black clothes, dark blue boots instead of dark shoes, her hat's bow is white and she doesn't have her usual braid on the left side of her hair.

Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream was where Marisa first appeared as a playable character, albeit not as the second choice - instead, Mima takes on that role. In the story, Marisa follows Mima and finds Reimu at mysterious old ruins, which promise a fantastic prize for whoever enters. A battle with six others for the prize ensued.

Lotus Land Story was where Marisa first started to be the second playable character, which became standardised throughout the Touhou Project. Here, Marisa senses a great magic power and wishes to make it hers. She heads towards the Lake of Blood without Reimu's knowledge, not letting anyone stand in her quest for power and encounters Yuuka Kazami.

In Phantasmagoria of Flower View, the flowers are blooming out of season, but this doesn't bother Marisa much at first. She simply wants to find out who's responsible for it and will be the first to know why.

Marisa sees that something is bothering Reimu and finds out that a rival shrine wants to take over. Marisa isn't going to sit back and let that happen, so if Reimu isn't going to do something about it, she certainly will.

In Subterranean Animism, a geyser appears behind the Hakurei Shrine, and Reimu and Marisa are ecstatic about their newfound hot spring. The youkai, however, are less than pleased as Earth spirits begin to spew out of the geyser. Patchouli and Yukari suspect it was an attempt to lure youkai into the geyser and decide to send Marisa instead to investigate.

Marisa discovers that her Mini-Hakkero is acting on its own that shoots out fire, believed to be turning into a tsukumogami. After discovering that previously docile youkai have become violent, Marisa learns from Yatsuhashi Tsukumo and Benben Tsukumo that a group of youkai are planning social upheaval. She travels to the Shining Needle Castle and defeats Seija Kijin, who remarks that her allies can become as strong as they want to if they ignore the consequences. After being led by Seija to the inner parts of the castle, she defeats the Miracle Mallet-wielding Shinmyoumaru Sukuna. Afterwards, a magical storm similar to the one caused by the Miracle Mallet rages and Marisa finds that the cause is the tsukumogami Raiko Horikawa, who had successfully changed her source of magic to that of the outside world. After beating Raiko, Marisa lets her go in exchange for not causing any problems in the future.

Marisa, not a main character, is only playable via selectable character to play with in Touhou Hisoutensoku. In Cirno's scenario, Marisa is sitting in a hot spring when Cirno appears and asks her if she saw a Daidarabotchi. Marisa decides to give her a hard time and fights her. After Marisa was "surprisingly defeated", she point Cirno the the wrong way. After Cirno comes back after a realisation, Marisa points that she saw a giant figure in the Forest of Magic. Even Marisa was interested on what the giant was. Also in Meiling's scenario, she doesn't actually appear here, to which is in fact a pseudo-Marisa who was sent by the Giant Catfish to assassinateHong Meiling in her dreams, but was defeated.

Marisa appears as the Extra stage boss of Fairy Wars. While Marisa is returning from a flower-viewing session, Cirno shows up and asks for a fight due to Aya suggesting that Cirno should fight a human. Marisa doesn't take the request very seriously at first, but she decides to fight using her non-deadly lasers. Surprisingly, Cirno puts up a good fight and actually manages to defeat Marisa, although Cirno appears to be defeated instead, even though Marisa was going easy on her. Marisa just heads back home after the fight to rest.

Marisa appears as a playable character in Urban Legend in Limbo. She was originally shown on a leaflet with various urban Japanese youkai with a torch/flashlight as though she's telling a spooky story. In the scenario, she discovered a phenomenon at Kourindou and took its power as herselves. Reimu Hakurei finds Marisa and wanted her to taste some mushrooms for poison, but Marisa attacked her with occult power. Reimu was confused, seeing a bizarre ball of sort.

Antinomy of Common Flowers

In Antinomy of Common Flowers, Marisa suddenly finds herself posessed by Koishi Komeiji. Although neither seems to know how it happened, the duo decides to stick together and have fun with Perfect Posession. They wind up meeting the culprits of the incident, Joon and Shion Yorigami. The disasterous sisters use their magic to exchange teammates, and Marisa is doomed to failure with Shion at her side.

Marisa is good friends with Reimu Hakurei and often hangs out at the Hakurei Shrine. Although it was originally Reimu's job, Marisa also snatches requests for youkai extermination at her convenience. In addition to incidents, there are many scenes where they're together, especially in the print works, often eating evening meals together. It is, however, never shown that Marisa has been inside the shrine.

Even though they're friends, they'll occasionally end up fighting each other, over an incident they're trying to solve or sometimes for personal reasons. In her fights with Reimu, she wins about 40% of the time.[25] She's also jealous of how Reimu never does any training and yet is strong by her natural abilities. If Reimu weren't there, Marisa would die due to boredom, so their relationship is beneficial. However, whenever Reimu's involved in something strange, half the time it seems that Marisa induced it behind Reimu's back.[13] Marisa named Reimu's signature spell, Fantasy Nature.

Their friendship most likely began as soon as they met - in Story of Eastern Wonderland, Marisa seems to immediately take an interest in Reimu, helping her train in the bad endings. Throughout the rest of the PC-98 era, Marisa often hangs around the Hakurei Shrine. In the Lotus Land Story ending, the two went outside together in plain clothing. In Marisa A's good ending in Lotus Land Story, Reimu said that it wouldn't be good for Marisa to interfere with her work. Furthermore, When Reimu reminded Marisa that it was dangerous, Marisa simply laughed and disregarded the warning. It appears that their daily life hasn't changed much.

Marisa's family runs a large second-hand shop in the Human Village, called the "Kirisame Shop".[25] Marisa has broken off relations with her family, and avoids everything related to them. She says to Rinnosuke Morichika that she'll never go back to them.[26]

In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, it's stated that her family is a private matter and the details are unclear. Also, the Kirisame Shop doesn't handle things related to magic items, which may be a reason why Marisa left. What the Kirisame Shop actually sells and the organisation of the family aren't revealed. Due to this, her family is a an area of wide speculation. However, her father has been confirmed to have been within Kourindou. None of her family members have been mentioned by name.

She seems to have a love-hate relationship of sorts with Marisa, with the two often insulting and fighting each other, yet teaming up on several occasions. For all the bickering the two go through, they seem to be close friends, as Alice once recommended Marisa's shop to the Three Fairies of Light when they needed some youkai extermination, and is comfortable enough with Marisa that in Imperishable Night's bad ending, she has no qualms with sleeping over at Marisa's house beside her.

The residents of the mansion are fully aware of Marisa sneaking into the magic library. They generally look the other way, but various incidents and win quotes from the fighting games shows that they'll fight Marisa in a duel if they actually catch her in the act. At other times, they'll simply leave her be, such as the mansion's private moon viewing party, or Marisa's endings in Embodiment of Scarlet Devil, where Sakuya even plays along with her, either serving her food or helping to conceal her from Remilia Scarlet. She's on friendly enough terms that she can walk in without any issue from most of the residents, even if she steals things.

Patchouli Knowledge

Patchouli Knowledge is one of the victims of Marisa's burglary, often having books from her library stolen. Despite that, she was supporting Marisa in Subterranean Animism, and they seemed to be on rather good terms. Additionally, Marisa has copied one of Patchouli's attacks and named it Love Sign "Non-Directional Laser".

Flandre Scarlet

In Perfect Memento in Strict Sense, Marisa commented, "sometimes when I sneak into the Scarlet Devil Mansion, I run into the little sister. I had to slip by without drawin' her attention, but after goin' through all that to get into the place, I was hopin' I wouldn't run into her."

Rinnosuke Morichika worked for Marisa's father at his shop as an apprentice in the Human Village before leaving to start Kourindou over eleven years ago before Marisa was born, and he's known her since she was small. Judging from Curiosities of Lotus Asia's 22nd chapter, she must have known him in person since at least around 2001, and the 6th chapter shows that Marisa once eavesdropped on a conversation between Rinnosuke and her father during one of Rinnosuke's rare visits to the Kirisame residence when she was "very young". Marisa thinks Rinnosuke is stiff with her because of her family, but the truth is Rinnosuke keeps his guard up with her because he doesn't want her to suspect when he's lying to her, particularly when it comes to her paying Rinnosuke with items that she collects.

Rinnosuke sees Marisa as something of an annoyance, as she often imposes herself on him and takes what she likes from the store, but they are still on good terms and he seems to welcome her company. They're friendly enough that he created and later gave her the Hakkero. She's also the only one to call him by his nickname "Kourin", although whether it implies fondness, or just that they've known each other for so long, is unknown.

Because of Marisa's collecting habits, Rinnosuke is often able to get valuable things she picks up for quite cheap, as Marisa usually doesn't know the true value of the item. However, he does feel somewhat bad about it.[27]

Nitori Kawashiro knows Marisa from the events of Mountain of Faith, and fancies herself as a friend of Marisa's. She was a support character in Subterranean Animism. Nitori isn't a magician so it cannot be said that they have "good compatibility". That they're a magician with a zeal for research and an engineer with a vigourous thirst for knowledge, is something that could possibly be said to be a point at which they're alike fellows who'd get along easily. There's been no depiction where the Youkai Mountain has ever been a victim of her robbery. Nitori herself has a personality of liking humans. Nitori and her fellow kappa are seen associated with Marisa in Wild and Horned Hermit, possibly for mutual business purposes.

Even for Marisa, who's habitually aloof from the world, in Subterranean Animism's conversations she was like someone in high spirits pressing on.

In the PC-98 games, Marisa is subservient to Mima. She admires her greatly, boasting that "Lady Mima cannot be beaten" in Story of Eastern Wonderland's omake and apologizing to her when defeated by Reimu Hakurei. Mima is currently the only character to be addressed honorifically by Marisa. Additionally, she takes some inspiration from Mima, sharing her attack patterns using magical orbs (as well as using them in her Orreries Sun spell card) and using illusionary wings similar to hers in Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream. However, they are never shown to engage in conversation with one another on-screen (the closest to it being Mima telling Marisa to "train harder" in Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream and Marisa's cheerfulness when she defeats her). ZUN doesn't answer any questions regarding their relationship, but says that Marisa's attitude towards Mima is easy to understand.[28]

The Three Fairies of Light have from the beginning lived in the Forest of Magic and thus have known about Marisa before. Originally, the three fairies were simply fairies to be exterminated when Marisa caught them playing pranks on Reimu or herself. However, after the fairies became Marisa's first customers at her shop where she liberated (maybe) their house from Tsuchinoko, the three fairies who are normally scared of strong people appear to have gradually grown closer together over the series.

Instead of exterminating them outright, Marisa would join in on their games and sometimes play pranks on them instead. Although they originally ran screaming in fear from her, by chapter 16, the fairies refer to her as "just Marisa", and are close enough to her that they'll actually hug her for warmth in the winter. In the fifteenth chapter of Strange and Bright Nature Deity, under the influence of alcohol, Marisa had the three fairies hanging, clinging to her neck, thus showing their close friendship. Reimu seems a bit perplexed at this sight, and starts referring to them as those fairies that Marisa is always hanging around. Marisa and the fairies proceed to team up to play a prank on Reimu. In later chapters, the fairies are happy to see her.

Marisa is initially unable to see the fairies' house. To all humans, fairy homes appear to be normal tree, even if they're actual houses from a fairy's point of view. However, for unexplained reasons, by the time of Oriental Sacred Place, she's able to detect which tree is their new house simply by looking at it from a distance. Marisa herself seems surprised she can do this. She gives the fairies a cheerful nod and keeps it a secret from Reimu, who was attempting to find their house to evict them.

Although she didn't have a relation to the three fairies then, she also appeared in Sangetsusei's supplementary shooting game Fairy Wars.

In the PC-98canon, Marisa is Mimi-chan's owner, and thinks Mimi's cute. She knows that Mimi-chan's a weapon from Yumemi Okazaki's world, but has no idea how to use her, and thus rides on Mimi. If she knew anything about how a intercontinental ballistic missile works, she probably wouldn't be doing so.

After the events of Subterranean Animism in her scenarios with Nitori Kawashiro and Patchouli Knowledge, Marisa impressed Koishi enough with her strength that she's allowed to come and play at the Palace of Earth Spirits at any time. She may say she's a friend of Satori to get everyone down there to leave her alone, because all the underground youkai hate Satori. Although Marisa and Satori tend to put each other at unease at times, Marisa looks forward to being able to go underground whenever she wants to.

Byakuren is a magician, much like Marisa, although is much more experienced and has become a youkai while Marisa has yet to do so. Despite an initial disagreement and misunderstanding over the status of youkai and humans in the Marisa A ending of Undefined Fantastic Object, Byakuren liked Marisa's direct personality, and in thanks for Marisa's help in breaking the seal, instructed Minamitsu Murasa to take Marisa to and from Makai whenever Marisa wanted. She also told Marisa that, as a magician, she could come see Byakuren if she ever had any trouble. It's unknown if the Palanquin Ship's conversion into a temple affected the arrangement.

Marisa's different color palettes from Touhou Hisoutensoku. The middle top corresponds to her second color palette in Scarlet Weather Rhapsody, while the right top corresponds to her Immaterial and Missing Power palette

Marisa's different color palettes. The first 5 color palettes are seen in Hopeless Masquerade, the 6th to 13th are seen in both Urban Legend in Limbo and Antinomy of Common Flowers, while the last two were added in Antinomy of Common Flowers v1.10

Marisa is second most frequent character to appear in the Touhou Project games before Reimu. This is because the two appeared in every game, but Marisa didn't appear in Highly Responsive to Prayers and Gold Rush, which Reimu did. Various exceptions would show to change these statistics such as Shoot the Bullet, which both characters didn't appear (but Marisa was used on the .exe's icon), but the two appeared in an afterword story, and Fairy Wars had only Marisa, but Reimu was still shown in a cameo.

Marisa has seven theme musics (excluding remixes), making her the character with the most theme songs.

Including spin-off games and Shuusou Gyoku, Marisa has appeared as an EX boss two times more than any other EX boss.

According to Rinnosuke Morichika, Marisa was inspired to use star-themed magic after a meteor shower viewing party around the year 2001. Marisa's strategy guide in Story of Eastern Wonderland's omake says her third attack uses star magic, but she only starts to use star magic as her main motif beginning with Phantasmagoria of Dim.Dream. This would imply that the last 3 PC-98 games don't take place in their release years.

According to Hieda no Akyuu, she believes that Marisa may become a youkai magician like Alice Margatroid due to the high amount of magic she possesses.[2] In Imperishable Night, she did express interest in immortality and eternal youth.

Marisa may be somewhat of a mathematical genius; in Mountain of Faith she utters the line "I could recite all the digits in pi before I got there." However, considering that pi has a literally infinite number of digits which never end or repeat in any pattern, it's likely just an expression to say "at this rate I'll never get there."

Marisa holds the distinction of being one of the very few characters in any Touhou game who's known to have a living family.

In Imperishable Night, Marisa survives looking at the full moon, which should drive normal humans insane. When Alice asks if she's alright, she says that it's alright since she's insane to begin with. She might well be joking, since Reimu Hakurei maintains her sanity looking at the full moon too. It could be that humans who are strong-willed enough can overcome that influence.

Marisa often refers to herself as "just an ordinary witch". This is often her character title in the games (i.e. Imperishable Night). Deneb the witch of the Ogre Battle games refers to herself in a similar, yet opposite manner: "I am a witch, but not just an ordinary witch!" She appears to make a reference to this in Perfect Cherry Blossom's third stage, when questioning whether or not Alice is an ordinary human.

Marisa has showed up saying "shoot and I'll move!!" in Shuusou Gyoku and Imperishable Night. This may be a reference to the Italian 1958 film Move and I'll Shoot, to which Marisa first says this instead in the latter game.

Abiding by the fate of a magician, Marisa isolates herself from other people. Although she possesses sharp wisdom, she normally doesn't use it to her benefit. As a being that humanity has left behind, she doesn't get involved with them. She's just satisfied being able to do whatever she wants. Among all, Reimu is the girl she loves (?), so she frequently visits the red shrine maiden to play.

This girl is also one of the protagonists. These two (Marisa and Reimu) are the heroines of the Touhou series.

Marisa has a very perverse personality, and she really has a pretty bad personality. Although she's human, she remains distant from other humans. It's questionable as to whether she really is human, but she is.

This time, she's wearing something resembling an apron, so it's hard to tell if she's a magician or what.

A bit of an ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She has a mania for collecting things.

It looks like her mania for collecting things is getting more serious after each year.

Her house, which she rarely invites anyone into by the way, is located in the forests of Gensokyo (a.k.a. Forest of Magic). It's a bit on the smallish side. The interior is extremely disordered, and would cause an avalanche of collected items if an earthquake hit.

When magic items are gathered in one place they tend to interfere with each other, causing their powers to amplify, weaken, or in some cases even develop completely different powers. Due to this fact, this house may hide items that even Marisa herself never imagined possible.

On another topic, the elixir she had been secretly developing during the winter ended up being too large for consumption. More improvement is required.

An ordinary magician. She usually cloisters herself in her house located at the Forest of Magic, where there are almost no visitors, and researches magic.

Her personality is unyielding and obstinate, but deep down she has a straightforward personality. She's treated like an annoyance wherever she goes, but in fact she often causes the annoyance to begin with.

One of the reasons she stays in the forest is because no one bothers to go there. She doesn't want to be disturbed while she's doing research, and when she wants to meet others she can always go there herself. She's like a send-only cell phone. However, she causes a disturbance at other places, wherever she goes.

She has good speed and power, but poor melee technique. While her movement is fast, her attacks are slow. She covers for her lack of physical strength with magic, but the amount of enhancement is actually overkill.

Ability: Ability to use magic
She's an ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She also has a mania for collecting things.

No one has any business in the Forest of Magic, so she lives there in comfortable solitude while studying to improve her magical ability.
You might imagine witches as being indoor-type people, but Marisa is a rather active outdoor-type person. She prefers a lively atmosphere over silence, but still doesn't like to be disturbed when she's studying. The Forest of Magic is the perfect place for her because almost no one bothers to visit her there. Marisa would also like to point out that, "Concealing my half-finished works is not the reason I'm living in there."

A bit past midnight, she felt a disturbance ripple through the forest. She had a feeling that something bad was about to happen, and she was right. Many hours later, it was still as dark as midnight, long past the time for dawn, as though the night was everlasting. She left home in a hurry to investigate this interesting night... and was a little too impatient when she met the people responsible for the unnaturally long night.

An ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She also has a mania for collecting things.

She seems a bit weird, but in reality she's the most straightforward. She always wears black clothing because she thinks that's what magic-users should do and because it hides dirt very well. Very straightforward.

This time she's just following Reimu's lead, but since this doesn't look like a typical incident, she's thinking about what she should do when she gets to the mountain.

She has a surprisingly high amount of faith.

Her fighting style generally relies on equipment that is suitable for people who likes positioning themselves. It becomes very powerful once you master it.

An ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She also has a mania for collecting things.

She seems a bit weird, but in reality she's the most straightforward. She always wears black clothing because she thinks that's what magic-users should do and because it hides dirt very well. Very straightforward.

Since she's a magician, she has good affinity with youkai who use magic. Nevertheless, not many people are very fond of her.

An ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She also has a mania for collecting things.

She seems a bit weird, but in reality she's the most straightforward. She always wears black clothing because she thinks that's what magic-users should do and because it hides dirt very well. Very straightforward.

A magician working at the Kirisame magic shop in a forest, far away from the human village. Though she works, the shop is mostly closed. A collector of magic items and a hardworking type, unlike Reimu. Even then, with her competetive and straightforward personality, she probably does not show her true self.

An ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She also has a mania for collecting things.

She seems a bit weird, but in reality she's the most straightforward. She always wears black clothing because she thinks that's what magic users should do and because it hides dirt very well. Very straightforward.

In actuality, she doesn't believe that there are treasures in the ship. That would be too easy. She boards the ship because it seems fun to her, even if there's no treasure. She's just brimming with curiosity.

A normal magician that lives in the forest.
She visits the shrine often, mainly to play along with Reimu's inspirations, or make Reimu play along with her's.
If you were to call Reimu a brain, Marisa would be the hard worker, but she never shows her hard work to others.

An ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She also has a mania for collecting things.

She seems a bit rebellious, but in reality she's the most straightforward. She always wears black clothing because she thinks that's what magic users should do and because it hides dirt very well. Very straightforward.

She noticed that the divine spirits were actually masses of human desire.
Her motivation is from pure curiosity.
Curiosity is also a form of desire.

The village is reverberating with sounds of the festival.
However, this festival somehow smells empty-hearted and momentary.
The religionists whose job it is to ensure the hearts of others smell like joy.
The girl anticipates it, and before the religionists taste the sweet soup,
she appeared in combat to increase her own allies.

Special skill: Three-Tiered Embellishment Magic

Each star lights up one by one when using strong ranged attacks or special attacks, and when all the starts are lit up, the next strong ranged attack or special attack will be powered up.
Depending on the attack, a different aspect of it will be strengthened,
such as its power increasing, its range enlarging, or granting a period of invincibility.
Generally speaking, Marisa is dangerous when all the stars are lit up.

Last Word: Sun Grazer

Riding on her broom, Marisa mows down the vicinity and crushes her opponent,
and when undefended, performs her strongest skill, a full-force assault.
The attack range of her sweeping through is wide,
and you can rely on Marisa to be invincible while attacking.

An ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She also has a mania for collecting things.

Her Mini-Hakkero shoots intense flames. Fearing that it might start emitting fire on its own, she has to keep it outside of her house. The Forest of Magic is quite humid, so there shouldn't be much danger of starting a forest fire, but...

Occult "The Seven Wonders of the School"
There’s power in firepower. A Magician with a natural talent for great firepower.
She fights with highly penetrating projectiles and power-efficient blows,
however her one weakness is the low maneuverability that comes with such overwhelming power.

Her Occult Attack is “The Nonfiction School Horrors”.
The indescribable horrors lend Marisa a hand and with morphed appearances they come charging.

An ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She also has a mania for collecting things.

In a rather odd turn of events, she obtained a power stone from the Lunar Capital.
Just as she started to realize that somehow, this power stone had beenmanifesting the urban legends, the lunar emissaries finally appeared.

A black-and-white magician who does diligent research in the Forest of Magic.

After discovering the Perfect Possession incident, she enjoys the possession battles with the help of her bizarre slave.
However, Marisa soon comes to realize that the Perfect Possession rumor has been spreading all too fast...

Her fighting style may be plain, but with her deep devotion to researching firepower and speed, she can run circles around any enemy.

An ordinary magician living in Gensokyo. She has a mania for collecting things.

By allowing a beast spirit to possess her, she could become far more powerful than usual.
As this was an extremely attractive prospect to her, she took the beast spirit up on its offer.
She felt no fear about going to Hell. In fact, she was quite excited to find out what sort of beings awaited her.